


Another Joyride

by mikeejimbo



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 19:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17772632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeejimbo/pseuds/mikeejimbo
Summary: Lars feels bad about how he treated Ronaldo in the past and wants to re-kindle their friendship. He has a hangout idea that is totally out of this world...although technically not free from its gravitational influence.





	Another Joyride

Ugh, this shouldn’t be hard, right?

Lars had fled from Emerald, barely escaping certain destruction. He and his crew snuck past 67 Citrine guards to steal the fastest, most valuable ship in the Gem Empire. They repaired their ship mid-flight multiple times. 

Apologizing to an old friend though? That was something he was apparently still having trouble with.

Part of it was that it felt selfish. Apologizing to Ronaldo for how he treated him for years would do more to make Lars feel better about himself than anything else. It’s not like it would undo all that hurt, all the ostracization. Then again, it hurt Lars too. It’s not like he’d had many friends in that time either. Maybe an apology was unnecessary here. Maybe it’d be better to just be a good friend now, from now on.

Lars smiled. He knew exactly what he could do for Ronaldo.

“Huh,” Ronaldo said, looking at his phone. Although he and Lars had made sure to get each other’s updated contact information after Lars got back to Earth, he hadn’t expected to actually get a text from him.

Hey Ronaldo, doing anything tonight?

Eh, not really. Why?

Wanna hang out?

I got nothing better to do. What’d you have in mind?

Get over here and I’ll explain

Intrigued - and indeed having nothing better to do - Ronaldo walked over to the Barrigas’ house. It was a fine early evening, the sun was just about to set. It was summer, the air was neither too cool nor too warm, and there was a light breeze. 

The brief thought that this might be some kind of cruel prank designed to make Ronaldo look foolish. Get his hopes up and then...dash them. But he shook that out of his mind. Lars’ entire mistreatment of Ronaldo was ignoring him and avoiding him. Lars was never intentionally or actively cruel, and he had definitely seemed to turn over a new leaf along with his color change. 

Ronaldo knocked tentatively on the door, and Lars opened it.  
“Do you always wear that cape?” Ronaldo said after a second. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I totally would too, I’m just kind of curi-”

“No no,” Lars said, shaking his head. “I only really wear it when I’m on the Sun Incinerator.”

“Wait, are you going on your ship? I thought we were going to hang- oooooooh,” Ronald said, coming to a realization. His eyes went wide with excitement. “Are you taking me on your ship??”

Lars smiled and nodded. “Bingo bongo! Figured you might be interested in that.”

“What are we waiting for?? Let’s go!” Ronaldo cried, running off. Lars blinked and chuckled. After a few seconds Ronaldo stopped and walked back.

“Wait,” Ronaldo said. “Where is your ship?”

Lars chuckled again and led Ronaldo to the beach where he had left his ship. Ronaldo had seen it before, but he still grew visibly more excited as they approached, and Lars almost thought his friend was going to pass out from excitement when the ramp opened.

Lars stepped in like he owned the place - which, to be fair, he kind of did. His crew was inside and greeted their captain. Ronaldo stepped in after him.

“Guys, this is Ronaldo,” Lars said, gesturing toward Ronaldo. “Ronaldo, meet my crew.”

“I just had a wonderful vision!” Padparadscha exclaimed. “Lars is going to bring a friend for tonight’s excursion!”

“Any friend of Lars is a friend of ours,” Fluorite said, approaching Ronaldo. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too! All of you!” Ronaldo cried, unable to contain his excitement. Rhodonite jumped at his sudden outburst. Ronaldo had met gems before, obviously, but somehow this was different. This was a crew of space pirates.

“Do you always just wait here for Lars?”

The Rutile twins smiled. “No.” “Lars said he wanted to go on an excursion tonight.”

“Where are we going?” Ronaldo asked.

“Just outside the atmosphere, maybe orbit the Earth a couple times, you know, take ‘er around the block,” Lars said.

“So we’re going on...a joyride?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Lars admitted, shrugging.

“In a spaceship??”

“Yep,” Lars agreed. “Is that cool?”

Ronaldo’s eyes shone with the light of his exuberance. “This is literally the coolest thing to ever happen to me!”

“Come on, let me show you around,” Lars said.

As Lars showed Ronaldo the bridge and explained each of the off-color’s roles, he couldn’t help but be a bit envious of Ronaldo. His friend looked like a kid in a candy shop taking all this in for the first time. Lars hadn’t had that luxury. When he first entered the ship, he was running on adrenaline, and then fled from Emerald and her ships. It was tough to lose her even for a moment at first, and by the time he had a breather he found that he was already somehow used to the ship and position he had found himself in. He’d never thought of himself as capable of being a leader, and he did so almost reluctantly. But the off-colors looked to him to do so and he didn’t want to let them down. He only took on the role of captain because he had to, because no one else was capable of it.

Shaking those thoughts out of his head for now, he went back up to the bridge with Ronaldo and took his seat in the captain’s chair.

“Padparadscha, call Peridot,” Lars said as he adopted his captain voice.

“Yes sir!” The screen sprang to life, showing Peridot.

“Good evening Sun Incinerator,” Peridot said. “Prepared for your trip tonight?”

“Yes indeed. How do the skies look?” 

Peridot moved Lars’ window to the corner of her tablet and brought up the radar app that she had developed to interface with a large radar antenna that she had built on the barn.

“Skies are empty,” Peridot said. “You are cleared for take-off.”

“Thank you, Peridot. Rutile, you may take off when ready.”

“And don’t take her too far!” Peridot said. “I don’t want unnecessary strain on those engines.”

“Of course not, Peridot,” Lars said, waving his hand dismissively. “You’re the best ground crew we’ve ever had.”

Lars heard Peridot mumbling something about being the only ground crew they’ve had while she hung up.

“I’m surprised they let you keep this ship,” Ronaldo said as the Rutile Twins lifted off. 

“Me too, actually,” Lars said. “I was ready to hang up my cape, since getting back to Earth was all I cared about. But Steven’s still working on shaking up gem culture and in the meantime I guess the Crystal Gems and homeworld have a kind of truce. They let me keep the ship as a sign of good faith. I offered to let Steven have it but he said the Off-Colors and I already knew the ship and he’d ask us for assistance if he ever has need of another ship. Apparently past experiences showed him the value in keeping one around.”

Ronaldo’s eyes shone as Lars described intergalactic politics. Given the parties involved it could technically be considered geopolitics despite not being confined to one geography.

“This is still literally the coolest.”

The flight out of the atmosphere was quick given the Sun Incinerator’s advanced engines. Soon they were in orbit, and Ronaldo marveled at the sight. This was certainly his first time off-planet, and he envied the rest of the crew’s experience in the matter. 

Displays beeped and buzzed with data from sensors and scanners. Ronaldo was unable to decide what to focus on. Lars’ brief tour had taught him a little about the technology, but there was still a lot that he didn’t know.

“What’s that?” Ronaldo said as he leaned over Rhodonite’s viewscreen and pointed at a little blinking dot.

Rhodonite jumped at the sudden ingress of the human into her personal space, but quickly recovered. “Oh! That’s some...object. Probably a satellite.”

She tapped on the blip and some readings popped up next to it. 

“Huh, Captain Lars, do humans build satellites with similar radar signatures to Homeworld vessels?”

Lars walked over to the viewscreen and looked at the readings. “Not...usually? They’re not this round. Well, I guess Sputnik was but…”

Lars looked over at Ronaldo. “How good is your knowledge of artificial satellites?”  
“Umm, maybe it’s a weather balloon?” 

Lars shook his head. “It seems a bit high up for a weather balloon. How close is it?”

Rhodonite tapped a few other virtual buttons on the interface. “Our orbital path will take us within... 80kms of it,” she said after doing the math to convert to a human measurement system.

“That’s close enough for a visual but far enough that I’m not concerned about collision. Although it’s above us right now… is it descending?”

“Wait wait,” Ronaldo interjected. “What do you mean ‘above’ and ‘below’? Those don’t have any meaning in spaaaaaace….” He spread his palms in front of him while he emphasized and drew out the word ‘space’.

“We’re still in orbit around Earth, so ‘above’ means ‘further from Earth’ and ‘below’ means ‘closer to Earth’,” Lars said.

“Remember….” Flourite said from the engine room’s hatch. “An orbit is just a controlled fall around the planet.”

“It’s...above,” Rhodonite said. “And its orbit is...decaying. Oh no! Are we going to crash into it??”

“Twins,” Lars said. “We can avoid that, right?”

“Yes” “Sir”.

“Our thrusters are in perfect working order,” Flourite said. “We will be fine.”

“But waaaaait, can we afford to burn that delta-V and remain in orbit?”

“Gem tech doesn’t need to use fuel mass to adjust course,” Lars said, rubbing his head slightly and trying to be patient with Ronaldo’s inaccurate attempts to help.

By now they had been approaching the object, and to Rhodonite’s relief the calculations showed that they weren’t in danger of a collison. Lars opened up a virtual telescope on the outward-facing viewports to enhance the image.

“Yep, it’s round all right,” he said. “And… red? It’s….a, one of those things, I’ve seen them before, but what would it be doing here?”

“Lars is going to see visual confirmation but forget the name ‘Roaming Eye!’” Padparadscha exclaimed.

“Yeah one of those. What’s it doing here? Rhodonite, can you open hailing?”

“Yes Captain Lars,” she said, reaching to do just that. Before she could though, something else on her viewport played a tone. “Um, actually we’re getting an incoming hail.”

“From the Roaming Eye?” 

“P-probably?” 

“Put it on the viewscreen,” Lars commanded.

The image of a Ruby appeared overlayed on the viewport. She looked something of a strange mix between panicked and relieved. 

“Oh thank stars you’ve found us! This is Roaming Eye QT314, we have lost power and experiencing orbital decay. Please assist!”

“Roaming Eye QT314, this is the Sun Incinerator,” Lars said. “We’re checking you out now. Padparadscha, what can you see?”

“Ship’s power is in emergency mode, but not enough to power the thrusters, even if it was all rerouted to them.”

“Thank you, Padparadscha. QT314, do we have permission to come aboard with our chief engineer and technical advisor?” Flourite and Padparadscha snapped to attention, ready to receive orders to help repair this vessel in distress.

“Yes of course! However, this ship isn’t equipped with measures to be boarded. We’ll have to -” 

 

“Don’t worry about that,” Lars said. “I’ve got that covered.” While looking at the viewport of the interior of the Roaming Eye, he extended his hands in front of him and spread them out. A pink portal appeared in front of his hands, and on the viewport a similar portal was visible behind the Ruby, who turned her head to look.

“What is that?” both Ronaldo and the Ruby managed to say at the same time. 

“Our boarding measure. Flourite, Padparadscha, Ronaldo. You’re with me. Rhodonite, you have the bridge.”

Padparadscha stepped through the portal, followed by Lars. Ronaldo hesitated only slightly, but also stepped through. Fluorite was the last, squeezing through the small opening.

 

On board the smallish Roaming Eye ship, Fluorite had to curl up slightly to fit, but she didn’t seem discomforted. Other than the Ruby who had contacted them, Ronaldo recognized one of the other passengers as a Pearl, but he didn’t know what or who the other two gems were. He looked around, bewildered to have been on two spaceships on the same day.

“Fluorite, check out the engines. Padparascha and I will look at the power core. Ronaldo,” Lars said, turning to his friend last. “Help the pilot contact Peridot on Earth.”

“Whaaaat, I’m delegated to calling for help?”

Lars winked. “My crew has been lacking a communications officer.”

“I’m a communications officer!” Ronaldo exclaimed, hurrying over to the console where the Ruby sat. 

“It’s channel 3,” Lars called over across the ship while he began removing an access panel.

Ronaldo looked at the unfamiliar gemtech of the ship, and then looked at the Ruby for some guidance. She switched it to channel three and opened up communications.

“Ground Control, this is the acting Communications Officer of the Sun Incinerator. Do you copy, Ground Control?” Ronaldo said as Peridot’s face came onto the viewscreen. She looked slightly surprised at first.

“You’re Lars’ human friend! I must commend you on utilizing proper voice procedure in your communication. Lars never bothers. But you’re not calling from the Sun Incinerator?” She finished as she looked at something on her display.

“We’re aboard a Roaming Eye. It lost power and engines and we are assisting. Lars wanted me to contact you.”

“A prudent choice. Wait, why was there a Roaming Eye in low Earth orbit?”

The Ruby at the helm spoke. “Ma’am, this Roaming Eye is transporting gems who wished to see what Pink Diamond’s colony was like. Now that there is a truce, temporary stays on the colony have been authorized by the Great Diamond Authority.”

There was a pause.

“They’re...tourists?” 

“...Yes ma’am.”

“Tell everyone aboard not to worry. You’re in good hands now. Communications Officer - please upload diagnostics and flight pattern data to me.”

“Roger, Ground Control,” Ronaldo said, performing a very human salute that the Ruby looked confused at. “Um, how do I do that?”

“...you may need to have the pilot assist. When you get back to the ground remind me to teach you a thing or two about gem communications equipment, if you’re going to be the Sun Incinerator’s Communications officer.”

The Ruby showed Ronaldo how to upload the data that Peridot needed, and they did so. As it was uploading, Ronaldo worked his way back over to Lars.

“This entire power coupling is fried, and it’s nothing we have spares for aboard our ship,” he said, with Ronaldo right behind him.

“How can I help?” Ronaldo asked.

Padparascha was ever ready with assistance. “I just foresaw that Ronaldo is going to come over here and ask how he can help.” 

Lars turned around with a slightly weary look on his face. “Thank you, Padparascha.”

Ronaldo looked past Lars at the gemtech power conduits and alien circuitry. He suddenly felt lost, and forlornly walked back to the helm.

“Captain,” Fluorite said from across the ship. “The engine is fine if we could get power to it.”

“That’d be great if there wasn’t a blown power coupling from the reactor to the engine.”

“Communications Officer,” Peridot said, coming back on the screen. “According to the trajectory information you uploaded, you have three hours until the Roaming Eye crashes on Earth.”

The collected gems of the ship gasped and/or whimpered from their various places - the two tall gems that were assisting Fluorite had just finished putting the hood back on the engine, and the Pearl was anxiously sweeping.

“We don’t have any spare power couplings. Peridot, any on the ground?”

“For a Roaming Eye? Probably not,and it would take me too long to fabricate one, even if you could make it here and back in time.”

“Oooh could you use your portal thingy?” Ronaldo said. Lars shook his head.

“Even if she did have one relatively quickly, I just about reached the limit of the distance I could do getting here. I probably couldn’t reach her on the ground… at least not from our current position.”

Ronaldo frowned. 

“I can get back to the Sun Incinerator, though. All right everyone! We’re abandoning this ship.” He opened another portal.

“But, without a pilot and without energy for autopilot, the ship will take a lot of damage during re-entry!” the Ruby reminded them.

“Peridot, where is it going to hit?”

“Middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“We’ll send Lapis for it, and I bet Peridot can fix it up once it’s retrieved. Now, get back about my ship!”

The two tall gems shrugged and headed toward the portal, while the Pearl looked relieved and didn’t hesitate to go through herself. Reluctantly, even the Ruby made her way aboard the Sun Incinerator.

Back aboard the Sun Incinerator, cramped for space, Ronaldo still managed to sit apart from the group and brood. Luckily, Lars was trying to be a better friend and noticed this. He walked over to Ronaldo.

“Heh, not exactly what I envisioned as a leisurely Sunday drive,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”

“No way, this would have been awesome… if I wasn’t such a loser.”

Lars was genuinely surprised that that was what Ronaldo took away from the day. “What do you mean?!”

“I thought I knew more about stuff than most people, but I’m clearly out of my depth here.”

“You think I wasn’t?” Lars said, barely resisting the old urge to scream. “I was practically pushing buttons at random and hoping something would work out at first. It took me four sectors to really get a hold of anything, and I bet you would have acclimated a lot more quickly!”

“Huh… I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m trying to be a better person, and it’s hard. Part of that was knowing what was holding me back. In my case it was that I was afraid, of pretty much everything. But especially of what people think of me.”

“Are you saying that what’s holding me back is...thinking I know more than I do?” Ronaldo said, arching a skeptical eyebrow. 

“I’m not saying anything other than that you need to look into yourself. The rest is up to you.”

Ronaldo gave a small huff, but otherwise this seemed to calm him down and put him in a pensive mood. He had to admit that this new outlook Lars had was pretty mature, though suspected that it was mostly due to Steven’s influence. Still, it had taken Lars going through a lot to get to this point. He literally had to die and be reborn, and Ronaldo smirked a bit at the thought that Lars’ life mimicked the archetypal hero’s journey. 

“I think everyone’s had enough excitement for one evening,” Lars said to the assembled crew and tourist gems. “Let’s get our guests back to Earth and try to convince Lapis to recover their ship, then Peridot to fix it.” Lars looked at Ronaldo at the end “And maybe next time we hang out, we should stick to something more low-key like horror movie night with Sadie Killer and the Suspects.”

Ronaldo laughed. “It’s kind of an amazing life when hanging out with rockstars is low-key in comparison.”

Lars gave a bright, genuine smile. 

“Bingo bongo.”


End file.
